If you're worried about using an aluminium moka coffee pot, there are plenty of stainless-steel versions on the market. Photograph: PR shot

We recently bought a traditional Italian moka coffee-maker. It seems rather shoddily made, and now we learn it is aluminium. We threw out our aluminium pans years ago. Should we chuck the coffee pot, too?The most recent research suggests there's no problem using aluminium pans (my mother has used them all her life, and at 95 she has a firmer grip on the world than I have ever managed), unless you're cooking things with high levels of oxalic acid or are using vinegar. But if the coffee maker is badly made, it will make coffee badly, so by all means throw it out. There are plenty of stainless-steel versions.

In the Canary Islands, I had a cereal called gofio that's good with mashed banana and lemon juice; it can also be used for pancakes. Can I buy it in the UK?For those who don't know their gofio from a round of golfio (which included me until I had to research this), gofio is a Canarian delicacy – it's a kind of flour, made with toasted wheat, barley, maize and/or chickpea, which is mixed with water or milk and used to make bread or as a base for breakfast. According to fuerteventura.uk.com, the slower the flour is ground, the better the gofio. And, of course, it's full of fibre and all manner of other healthy things, so is very good for you. To buy some, it looks as if you'll have to go online: tucanarias.com lists variations on a gofio theme.